2017-09-15T13:28:26ZThe Rhetoric of Eco-Revolutionary Activism: Constructing the Earth Liberation Fronthttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19943
The Rhetoric of Eco-Revolutionary Activism: Constructing the Earth Liberation Front
Olson, Jade
In the mid-1990s, a new voice of environmental protest emerged in the United
States. Frustrated by the failures of both mainstream and radical environmental activism
to protect the Earth from the catastrophic effects of industrial capitalism, a small group of
clandestine activists identifying as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) utilized vandalism,
arson, and other means of property destruction to articulate a rhetoric of revolutionary
environmental resistance. An unlikely coalition of voices from industry, government, and
the established environmental movement emerged to oppose ELF, painting the activists
as dangerous eco-terrorists.
This study examines the dialectical contest to provide the dominant public
account of ELF’s enigmatic protest rhetoric. This rhetoric is referred to in the study as
eco-revolutionary activism, for it rejected even the radical discourses of its ideological
predecessors such as Earth First!, embracing instead a holistic critique of capitalism, the
state, and contemporary civilization. The study traces the dialectic that unfolded through
a series of key moments in the rise and fall of ELF in the public imaginary.
ELF made national headlines in 1998 when affiliated activists set fire to seven
buildings at a Colorado ski resort as a protest against the resort’s planned expansion into
ecologically fragile habitat. In the years that followed, ELF activists went on to commit
more than 100 protest actions, causing millions of dollars in economic damage and
prompting foundational questions about the meaning of violence, the limits of protest,
and the responsibility of individuals to combat harmful systems. Anti-ELF rhetors
publicly condemned ELF activists as eco-terrorists, taking advantage of cultural anxieties
about terrorism that emerged in the wake of events such as the Oklahoma City bombing
in 1995 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. By early 2006, the rhetoric of terror
had successfully trumped ELF’s eco-revolutionary rhetoric, functionally ending the
public dialectic on ELF. The study finds that, while ELF’s eco-revolutionary voice was
compelling and innovative, its flaws made it susceptible to the more powerful rhetoric of
terror.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZIMPACT OF WEB CONTENT FEEDBACK SYSTEM ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEALTH PROMOTION MESSAGES ON YOUTUBE: A NORMS-BASED INQUIRYhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19935
IMPACT OF WEB CONTENT FEEDBACK SYSTEM ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEALTH PROMOTION MESSAGES ON YOUTUBE: A NORMS-BASED INQUIRY
Yang, Bo
The widespread use of social media in health communication makes it important to understand how the media’s characteristics impact health communication effectiveness. This dissertation used social norms theory to explain the persuasive impact of web content feedback system—a unique feature of social media—on people’s responses to health promotion messages posted on a social media site YouTube. Three common social media content feedback cues (comments, aggregate ratings, and message view count) were examined. These cues were expected to influence people’s health attitudes and behavioral intentions via the mediation of three types of perceived social norms (descriptive norms, injunctive norms and subjective norms).
Two experiments examined the norms-mediated model in three health contexts (smoking, binge drinking, and texting while driving). Experiment 1 examined the influence of proportion of positive comments (large, medium, vs. small) and comment focus (message vs. behavior). As expected, proportion of positive comments was negatively related to people’s perceived social approval of smoking and texting while driving (injunctive norms). However, it had a concave downward relationship with perceived social approval of binge drinking (i.e., injunctive norms). The results also suggested an important impact of comment focus on people’s responses to health promotion messages. Experiment 2 examined the influence of proportion of thumbs-up (large, medium, vs. small) and message view count (high, medium vs. low). It was hypothesized that greater proportion of thumbs-up would lead to less favorable beliefs about problem behaviors. This hypothesis was supported only when the outcome variable was texting while driving intention. View count positively predicted people’s smoking and binge drinking intentions and marginally, positively predicted texting while driving subjective norms. It had a concave downward relationship with binge drinking attitudes. Experiment 2 also found complex joint effects of view count and proportion of thumbs-up.
In spite of many findings about the influence of comments, ratings, and view count on norms, attitudes, or intentions, both study 1 and study 2 provided limited support for the hypothesized norms-based mediation. Limitations, theoretical and practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZTesting a Dual Path Framework of the Boomerang Effect: Proattitudinal versus Counterattitudinal Messageshttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19926
Testing a Dual Path Framework of the Boomerang Effect: Proattitudinal versus Counterattitudinal Messages
Zhao, Xinyan
This dissertation aims to differentiate two types of boomerang effects on belief and attitude change: a boomerang effect under a proattitudinal message and a boomerang effect under a counterattitudinal message. By employing a 2 (Message valence: anti-policy vs. pro-policy) × 2 (Issues: legal age for drinking vs. legal age of marriage) × 2 (Threat to freedom: low threat vs. high threat) × 2 (Argument quality: low quality vs. high quality) plus 2 (Control groups: no-message control for the two issues) cross-sectional factorial design (N = 458), antecedents and mediators that bring about the two types of boomerang effect were examined. Under a counterattitudinal message, both argument quality and prior belief strength predicted a boomerang effect: Those receiving a low-quality argument or those with a strong prior belief, as compared with the control group, exhibited a boomerang on belief and attitude. The dominant mechanism that explained the relationship between argument quality and belief position boomerang was counterarguing (vs. anger). Under a proattitudinal message, there was an indirect effect of trait reactance on belief boomerang through anger (vs. negative cognitions). But the perceived threat to attitudinal freedom did not predict a boomerang effect. These results contribute to attitude change research by empirically separating cognitive and affective mechanisms for boomerang effects. Furthermore, this study refines the construct of negative cognitions and integrates reactance theory and the cognitive response perspective on boomerang effects. Both structural equation models and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that counterarguments and nonrefutational thoughts were two distinct types of negative cognitions. The two constructs were caused by different sets of antecedents and had different outcomes: Poor argument quality caused counterarguments, whereas perceived threat and trait reactance caused nonrefutational thoughts. Only counterarguments mediated the effects of argument quality on the boomerang effects for belief (e.g., the extent to which the legal drinking age should be decreased on a magnitude scale) and belief position (e.g., the legal age for drinking), which subsequently predicted the boomerang effect on attitude (e.g., the extent to which the legal drinking age is liked). This dissertation expands the theoretical scope of belief and attitude change research. Future research should explore the persuasive appeals for mitigating the cognitive or affective process resulting in a boomerang effect. Among those who are more prone to boomerang on certain issues, a boomerang appeal can be employed to persuade.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Child Labor Movement's Night Messenger Service Campaign: Rights and Reform in the Progressive Erahttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/19868
The Child Labor Movement's Night Messenger Service Campaign: Rights and Reform in the Progressive Era
Gardner, Elizabeth Ellen
The Progressive Era is known for the democratization and expansion of government and the professionalization of occupations. The campaign to regulate child labor in the night messenger service (NMS) exemplifies the symbiosis and clash of these progressive forces. Specifically, this study analyzes how NMS reformers adopted rhetorics of social science, moral citizenship, and rights to define social problems and to expand the power of states over childhood.
To this end, this study examines the NMS campaign’s discourse between 1909 and 1915 to demonstrate the ways in which reformers used technical arguments to renegotiate the process of reform and to realign the rights of children, parents, and states. These chapters follow the evolution of this campaign as it defined the NMS problem through its investigative reports, constructed the American public as under threat in its public appeals, and realigned the rights of adolescents within the states during its legislative process. As part of their technical arguments, campaigners identified experts as the instigators of reform, constructed the American public as an educated but inactive moral ideal, and established the leaders of the newly-formed child labor organizations as the undisputed managers of legislative initiatives. In so doing, the NMS campaigners helped establish the legitimacy and centrality of child welfare organizations within reform. In the NMS campaign model, technical expertise was necessary to collect research and guide a legislative campaign. As the American people were not experts, campaigners simply called on the general public to be vigilant and responsive to the directives of reformers.
In the process, this study looks at the ways in which this reform campaign renegotiated the boundaries of adolescence in the Progressive Era. NMS campaigners sketched the independence of these adolescent laborers as a threat to the good of the community, and on the basis of that threat, reformers successfully lobbied to place the work of adolescents under the authority of the state. The NMS legislation positioned state governments rather than the family as the primary overseer of an adolescent’s labor and moral education and redefined the confines of adolescent labor in terms of age, time, and space.
2016-01-01T00:00:00Z